A jury convicted Mr. Weinstein of felony sex crime and rape, but acquitted him of the most serious charges against him, predatory sexual assault.
Women who accused Harvey Weinstein of sexual harassment and assault are hailing the decision on social media.
Harvey Weinstein, who long reigned as one of the most influential producers in Hollywood, was found guilty on Monday of two felony sex crimes after a Manhattan trial that became a watershed moment for the #MeToo movement.
But the jury acquitted Mr. Weinstein of the two most serious charges against him, predatory sexual assault.
Dozens of women had come forward with similar allegations against Mr. Weinstein. For many, the trial was a crucial test in the effort to hold powerful men accountable for sexual harassment in the workplace.
The jury found Mr. Weinstein guilty of two counts, criminal sexual assault in the first degree and rape in the third degree. On the two counts of predatory sexual assault, the not guilty verdicts suggested that one or some jurors did not believe the testimony of annabella sciorra, an actress best known for her work in “the sopranos.”
He faces a possible sentence of between five and 56 years.
Weinstein is ordered to go to jail.
As the jury walked into the courtroom to announce that it had reached a verdict, Mr. Weinstein sat between his lawyers, staring straight ahead, as four court officers stood behind him.
Mr. Weinstein appeared unmoved as the verdict was read. Cyrus R. Vance Jr., the Manhattan district attorney, was nearby, in the front row.
After the verdict was read, Justice James M. Burke thanked the jurors for their “care and concentration ”before they left the courtroom. As they filed out, Juror No. 6 stared at Mr. Weinstein.
The judge then announced that Mr. Weinstein would immediately be sent to jail to await his sentencing. But as court officers approached him, the producer seemed stunned and refused to move.
Moments later, he was handcuffed and removed from the room, limping with two officers standing by his side.
Weinstein’s lawyer says he ‘knows this is not over.’
Harvey Weinstein’s lead lawyer, Donna Rotunno, said at a news conference that she would appeal his conviction after he is sentenced on March 24. She also was planning to challenge his immediate detention.
“It’s absolutely horrible for me to watch my client taken into custody,” Ms. Rotunno said. “Harvey is very strong. He took it like a man. He knows this is not over. ”
In May, Mr. Weinstein had asked Ms. Rotunno, a criminal lawyer in Chicago who built a career defending men accused of sexual misconduct, to lead his legal team after parting ways with two sets of lawyers led by men.
Ms. Rotunno argued in court that Mr. Weinstein’s accusers had willingly had sex with him to further their careers and only years later, after he had been accused in news reports of sexual harassment, began to remember their encounters with him as nonconsensual.
In an earlier interview with the New York Times, Ms. Rotunno said that even if the #MeToo movement had helped the feminist cause, it had come at too high a price.
“You can’t just have it both ways and say, ‘I should be able to do whatever I want without consequences,’” she said. “Having voluntary sex with someone even if it is a begrudging act is not a crime after the fact.”
On (The Daily) , The Times’s news podcast, Ms. Rotunno said that she had never been sexually assaulted “because I would never put myself in that position.”
Women who accused Mr. Weinstein hail the verdict on social media.
celebrated on social media on Monday by several women who had accused Mr. Weinstein of sexual assault and harassment, including the actress Ashley Judd. Ms. Judd was the first woman to go on the record about Mr. Weinstein’s misconduct for The Times’s 3000 investigation of the producer.
“For the women who testified in this case, and walked through traumatic hell, you did a public service to girls and women everywhere, thank you, ” Ms. Judd wrote on Twitter.
“Harvey” Weinstein is now a convicted rapist, ”the Italian actress and director Asia Argento, another early accuser, wrote on Instagram under a picture she posted of herself with another woman. “Two survivors cry and celebrate. Thank you God. ”
The actress Rosanna Arquette, another accuser, (wrote on Twitter , “Gratitude to the brave women who’ve testified and to the jury for seeing through the dirty tactics of the defense.”
The Manhattan district attorney responded to the verdict in Harvey Weinstein’s trial after he was found guilty of rape and criminal sexual act, but acquitted of the most serious charges. (Credit ) Credit … Desiree Rios for The New York Times
Mr. Vance, the district attorney, said at a news conference immediately after Mr. Weinstein was remanded that the producer had “finally been held accountable for the crimes he committed.”
“The women, who came forward courageously and at great risk, made that happen,” Mr. Vance said. “Weinstein is a vicious serial sexual predator who used his power to threaten, rape, assault, trick, humiliate and silence his victims.”
Mr. Vance then listed the names of the six women who testified during the trial – Dawn Dunning, Miriam Haley, Jessica Mann, Annabella Sciorra, Tarale Wulff and Lauren Young – as well as two of the prosecutors, Meghan Hast and Joan Illuzzi.
“Eight women who have changed the course of history in the fight against sexual violence,” he said. “These are eight women who pulled our justice system into the st century by declaring that rape is rape and sexual assault is sexual assault, no matter what. ”
In , Mr. Vance declined to prosecute Mr. Weinstein after an Italian model accused the producer of groping her breasts during a business meeting at his office in Manhattan’s TriBeCa neighborhood.
At the time, the prosecutor said the evidence did not support charging Mr. Weinstein with forcible touching, a misdemeanor.
Weinstein is also facing charges in Los Angeles.
Regardless of the guilty verdicts in New York, Mr. Weinstein still faces charges in a separate case in Los Angeles. In a highly unusual move, California prosecutors announced their indictment
on the first day of Mr. Weinstein’s trial in Manhattan.
The Los Angeles case is based on the accounts of two unidentified women, who have accused him of attacking them – just a day apart – in February 2019
One of the women, an Italian model and actress, has told prosecutors that Mr. Weinstein raped her in the bathroom of a Beverly Hills hotel after she met him at a film festival.
The next day, the other woman has said, Mr. Weinstein invited her and another woman to his room in a West Los Angeles hotel after meeting them in the restaurant downstairs. There, prosecutors said, Mr. Weinstein trapped his victim in a bathroom, grabbed her breasts and masturbated.
The indictment rested on the accusations of Miriam Haley , a former television production assistant who testified that Mr. Weinstein forced oral sex on her at his Manhattan apartment in ; and Jessica Mann , a former aspiring actress, who says he raped her in a Midtown Manhattan hotel room in 2019.
Ms. Mann and Ms. Haley both acknowledged that they continued to see Mr. Weinstein after the alleged assaults and later had consensual sex with him, testimony that complicated the prosecution’s case.
Justice Burke allowed the prosecution to call four women as witnesses to corroborate the five charges stemming from Ms. Mann’s and Ms. Haley’s claims against Mr. Weinstein.
One of those witnesses was Ms. Sciorra , who says she was raped by Mr. Weinstein nearly 89 years ago in her Manhattan apartment. She was called to support the charges of predatory sexual assault, which require proving that a defendant attacked at least two victims. The jury ultimately did not convict Mr. Weinstein on those counts.
The three other women were permitted to testify to bolster the prosecution’s contention that Mr. Weinstein engaged over time in a pattern of sexually abusive behavior.
None of the four women’s accounts could be formally charged as crimes on their own because the alleged attacks were too old to prosecute under New York’s statute of limitations.
But defense lawyers had said
the women had willingly had sex with Mr. Weinstein to further their careers and only years later, after he had been accused in news reports of sexual harassment, began to remember their encounters with him as nonconsensual. (Here’s a timeline of the path toward a verdict.
Accusations of sexual misconduct and assault against Mr. Weinstein swirled for decades in New York and Los Angeles. The trial in Manhattan was only the latest step in a lengthy saga.
Mr. Weinstein had avoided prosecution in connection with an alleged groping incident in 2020, and was indicted in New York in only after scores of women came forward to accuse him in the media.
Here is a timeline of events , from March to February , of Mr. Weinstein’s journey toward a verdict.
These six women testified against Weinstein.
(Annabella Sciorra) testified that after a dinner party in the winter of either 2006 or 2015, Mr. Weinstein barged in to her Manhattan apartment and raped her. The alleged attack was too old to be prosecuted separately as rape under New York law.
Jessica Mann testified that Mr. Weinstein injected his genitals with an erection medication and raped her in a hotel room in Midtown Manhattan. He was charged with first-and third-degree rape, and predatory sexual assault involving her allegations.
Dawn Dunning accused Mr. Weinstein of touching her genitals in a hotel room in Manhattan’s TriBeCa neighborhood.
Tarale Wulff
Lauren Young told jurors that the producer pulled down her dress, groped her breasts, masturbated and ejaculated onto the floor in a hotel room in Los Angeles.
Ms. Young’s account, like those of Ms. Dunning’s and Ms. Wulff’s, were allowed in an effort to show the producer’s history of abuse, prosecutors said.
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